Tag: Religious Liberty

Mike Pompeo…trying to Make Christianity Great Again?

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Mike Pompeo_1
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Foter.com / CC BY-SA – GLAAD

“Religious freedom isn’t just a Christian concern, a Jewish concern, a Muslim concern, a Buddhist concern, a Hindu concern, or a humanist concern. It’s all of our concern; it is everyone’s concern.” – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 2019 Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom

Yes, you should be very concerned.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is moving a faith-based agenda that paints his and his like-minded colleagues’ brand of Christianity as targets of oppression.  This is part of a strategy to form alliances in parts of the world where the Trump administration is looking to amass or hold on to waning imperial power (the Middle East, Asia, South America, etc.) As I read through the transcripts and materials for the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom (a gathering to which I would be surprised if any Unitarian Universalists or publicly pro-LGBTQ faith leaders were invited) some of the prominent names say it all: Secretary Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), as well as journalists, Raymond Arroyo, David Brody, Hugh Hewitt, Pete Mundo. All conservative, all male, all white.  I genuinely have nothing against conservative white men; I just don’t think that they should be the only flavor leading or shaping the narrative in a conversation about global faith and freedom particularly when the United States is steadily retreating from hard earned liberties such as access to contraception, HIV prevention, women’s right to choose, transgender rights, migrant rights, anti-racism, etc.  In the materials that appear online, I see no appetite to address the ways in which religion is used globally to justify rape, execution of sexual minorities and actual genocide.  Pompeo’s religious altruism is a political MacGuffin.

Contrary to the narrative of certain state legislatures, Christianity in the United States is not under attack.  But it is, through its own organizational and institutional failings, increasingly unpopular and sometimes downright harmful, like many religious institutions in our country.  Centuries of unchecked power, prosperity gospel gone haywire, child molestation, pastor sexual assaults, justification of every kind of narrow-minded marginalization and otherization based on highly limited readings of Biblical scripture…Christianity has done itself no favors in the last 50 – 100 years while the world has changed, gotten significantly smaller, more literate and smarter.  At the same time there are also people who identify publicly as Christians who are working hard to evolve the faith and keep it from sliding entirely off the edge and into the sewer of racism, bigotry and xenophobia.  People like Yvette Flunder, Brian McLaren, Jacqui Lewis, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Traci Blackmon and William Barber.  These are leaders I encounter and admire at gatherings like the Wild Goose Festival where people convene to celebrate Christianity in the context of spiritual, cultural and even emotional diversity.  And this is the important difference, in this setting, the goal is to be Christians in the world before regarding the world as an inherently anti-Christian adversary.

Of course, it is not really fair to compare the two gatherings, but they present such a stark contrast, each with a goal of creating a community of tolerance. But “tolerance” is a problematic goal, particularly in a world shrunken and made potentially more lethal by technology.  We must enter into an entirely new relationship with our differences that acknowledges and creates space for both Mike Pompeo and me (a gay, black minister who believes in open borders) to be in relationship.  Mike Pompeo has every right in his personal world (and small mind) to believe that I am a Godless abomination.  I don’t need him to like me, but I need him to acknowledge and in no way obstruct the fact that I exist.  Moreover, he does not have any right to present his personal beliefs as the blueprint for an international policy agenda in my name.

“Belief is not the price of admission to civil rights.”

Here is the challenge: how to provide room for opposing beliefs and create unified government and peace.  This was the conundrum that faced the architects of the American Revolution.  In 1786, the Virginia Assembly adopted the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom (1786).  Its author, Thomas Jefferson, prior to becoming our first Secretary of State wrote:

[Be it enacted by the General Assembly] that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

These words are the precursor to the first amendment of the US Constitution.  Jefferson was a deeply conflicted man, culturally and politically, but on religion he is clear: belief is not the price of admission to civil rights.

I am convinced that our modern solution is not to be concerned with “religious freedom” or “religious liberty” (particularly as co-opted by religious conservatives) but rather to work toward Religious Equity: an intentional and explicit balance between freedom of religion and freedom from religion.  Religious Equity, in the context of the United States, could function as a framework to strengthen the original intent of the Constitutional right to freedom of religion while providing a basis for that intent to evolve with an increasing spiritual diversity of the population that was unknown to the “founding fathers.” In addition, it would acknowledge a place and role for clearly defined secularism in our society.  If I could put it in a “declaration” of my own it would read something like this:

To affirm that beliefs about “being” expressed or held as religion, faith, spirituality, non-religion, etc. intersect with how our human society is formed and how it functions.  Acknowledging also that because of this intersection and because of our shared humanity, we are obliged to create social systems and relationships whereby the full and evolving diversity of beliefs may co-exist/ whether those beliefs are in concert or in dissonance. Concurrently we must protect and defend the right of all existing beings of free and independent will and conscience to believe or not believe according to their self-determined autonomy without threat of harm or restriction to the secular liberties of one another.

Pompeo may drop the word “humanist” here and there, but his actions indicate that he is not concerned with Humanists, or sexual minorities, tribal societies threatened by climate change, or the majority of women who suffer globally at the hands of religion (marital rape, genital mutilation, etc.)  He is only concerned with an agenda that creates a welcoming environment for a specific brand of conservative Christianity and builds alliances that can be leveraged for political purposes.  Religious “freedom” cannot be a mask for an agenda of faith based imperialism.  We must not validate a global politics based on religion by simply being asleep at the wheel.  Rather we would do better to intentionally embrace Religious Equity as an ethical position to support work in the world that ensures both freedom of belief and freedom to disavow belief ultimately freeing us all to defend the secular right to exist in peace.

– ALD

Are We Ready for Religious Equity?

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The Democratic presidential candidates have an extremely daunting task in front of them in 2020.  In order to win the election, whoever the candidate is must come up with a platform that can counter balance the powerful Republican voting bloc that is activated by a deeply conservative Christian message. This is a message that often contains but is not limited to a mix of any of the following: marriage as only between men and women, purely binary concepts of sexuality and gender, abortion regarded as an act of murder regardless of the situation and a belief that “progressive values” are attacks on (Christian) faith.

On the surface, the goal looks simple: find a way to appeal to this bloc on a partial or maybe a “tolerable” basis to attract a few voters to the progressive side.  But it is impossible for modern progressive Democrats to beat the Republican Party on their own turf, conservatives are much too well entrenched at this point. What the Democrats need to do is draw conservative faith communities into an entirely new space where they can feel equally heard and counted as part of the American experiment which actually thrives on divergent views. Taking a cue from the politics of economics and race, Democrats could benefit from adopting the position of Religious Equity.  By crafting a platform that includes Religious Equity, the 2020 candidates have the opportunity to get away from the “either/or” language that currently plagues the political discourse around faith. This platform would not seek a middle ground but, like other forms of social equity, it would seek a balanced social environment where faith (or no faith) can thrive regardless of politics. Candidates must be able to convince conservative communities of faith that even if they don’t hold the same religious convictions, progressives are not against them. This is the real challenge.

Too often Democrats are perceived as expressing their personal faith views with little commitment to bringing any kind of faith with them into the political arena. Granted, this is the way our government is supposed to work. But judging from the success of the Republican Party Platform, a tacit expression of the separation of church and state is not what motivates conservative voters.  Indeed, recent Republican candidates have managed to thread the needle in a clever way. Instead of activating their personal religious views as the impulse behind policy (with the notable exception of people like Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Michelle Bachman) they have secured their following by activating policy as a public reassurance to conservative religious voters whether they hold those views or not. This is how a twice divorced, known misogynist with a history of cultivating even the decision making and powerful women in his orbit as ornaments can be seen as “pro woman.”  It would be disingenuous of him to say that his religious convictions are what have compelled him to appoint judges who are poised to undo Roe v Wade, but instead he puts his policy of judge appointment up as proof of his “cred” with the Christian conservatives. His personal religious convictions never really come into the picture only his willingness to be the representative of those values does. This strategy of leading with conservative policy puts the Republican candidate on the same footing as the voter and draws a closer and more intimate alliance between the two even though it is mereley a power grab and not necessarily proof of any sincerely held values. It is the Republican version of identity politics and it works.

Religious Equity moves outside of identity politics.  In this framework, there is recognition of the vast difference and divergence of religious belief in this nation. It does not prioritize one expression over another and it does not leave the candidate as the standard bearer of a unique faith perspective. Religious Equity recognizes that in order to live out the promise of the Constitution, all religious convictions (including the right to have no religion at all) must be protected by political leaders regardless of their personal identity.  “Religious Liberty” has become code for protecting Christian rights. Religious Equity can become the definition of providing the opportunity for multiple (even conflicting) perspectives on faith and non-faith to co-exist. Religious Equity is “both/and” as opposed to “either/or.” Most importantly, Religious Equity is not indecisive. Instead, it functions on a higher level in the conversation, putting a fine point in modern language on how we affirm the separation of church and state. Religious Equity gives current relevance to the principles of the US Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights. Religious Equity seeks to prioritize the government’s role as protector of the systems that contain an inherent right of human dignity to hold and practice individual religious expression. Religious Equity firmly establishes why and how the government cannot be a champion for one faith expression over another but an enabler of all.

Regardless of who the Democratic Party candidate is, anyone who wants to dislodge the current toxic Republican leadership must strike the right tone and language with messaging about faith.  They cannot ignore this conversation or take a casual, cursory or even traditional approach to how they address faith. The candidates cannot rely on the typical tropes of separation of church and state. They must find new and exciting ways to draw in progressives and conservatives alike; Atheist or Orthodox; religious zealots and religious “nones.” The sweet spot that progressives need in order to counter the divisive narrative offered by staunch religious conservatives in the political arena could be Religious Equity. The question is, who among the Democrats is willing to put such a bold message out into the world?